1. Field
Although not so limited in its utility or scope, implementations of the present invention are particularly well suited for incorporation in material sortation systems such as those used in moving mail pieces through various stages of processing in a mail processing facility, for example.
2. Brief Description of an Illustrative Environment and Related Art
Material handling operations frequently involve the use of transport systems including networks of conveyor belts, roller conveyors, conduits and chutes. In a typical material sorting environment, a material receptacle is located at each terminus of a selected plurality of termini for the collection of material exiting the sortation system. Commonly, a discharge chute corresponds to a terminus and includes a surface sloped downwardly toward the receptacle for guiding material exiting the sortation system into the receptacle situated below the chute. Illustrative, commonly used, material receptacles include flexible receptacles such as sacks and bags, for example, and rigid receptacles such as boxes, crates, cartons, and carts, for instance.
In a typical package or mail sortation system, multiple, adjacent discharge chutes are arranged along a base structure such as a longitudinally extending main framework adapted for supporting plural chutes. Each chute, and the receptacle corresponding thereto, is typically dedicated to guiding and retaining mail pieces destined for a particular geographical region. Depending on the level of sortation refinement to which a set of chutes and receptacles is dedicated, each chute within the set may be dedicated to mail pieces destined for a particular region of the country, a particular state, a region of a state identifiable by the first three or four digits of a ZIP Code or destination city, for example. A reality of mail sortation systems is that a small percentage of mail pieces exits the sortation apparatus prematurely (i.e., without settling in appropriate receptacles). Of the mail pieces that are unintentionally expelled from the sortation apparatus, a considerable percentage travel as far as the discharge chute and simply miss the receptacle and come to rest on the work area floor, thereby contributing to the “miss sort error” rate of the overall sortation system. For various reasons, sortation protocol in certain sorting facilities requires the reintroduction into the system of unintentionally expelled mail pieces. Consequently, unintentionally expelled mail pieces handled in accordance with the aforementioned protocol must be “double handled” by at least a portion of the mail sorting apparatus. As will be readily appreciated, since a given set of mail sortation apparatus can handle only a finite number of mail pieces per unit time, the “double handling” of mail pieces by any portion of the mail sorting apparatus decreases the efficiency of the overall sortation system.
In response to miss-sort errors in the vicinity of receptacles, sortation facility personnel have resorted to various improvised measures. For instance, it is not uncommon for sortation personnel to raise the front of a receptacle (i.e., the opening edge of the receptacle opposite the exit end of the discharge chute) with the intention of creating a “back stop” for mail pieces that might otherwise overshoot the receptacle. Such measures succeed to a limited extent, but nonetheless require the ad hoc intervention of personnel and, moreover, do not succeed to the same extent that a more permanent solution would.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a collapsible, selectively deployable material-receptacle hanger system adapted for directing into a predetermined receptacle material (e.g., mail pieces) discharged from a discharge chute.